


[AGGRESSIVELY FANCY TITLE HERE]

by Budinca



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Hinted Relationships, Things May or May Not Happen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-04
Updated: 2013-05-09
Packaged: 2017-12-10 09:33:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/784540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Budinca/pseuds/Budinca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a war-consumed future, jacks-of-all-illegal-trades Dave Strider and Karkat Vantas are given a mission by a faceless insurgent hacker. They are to go almost all the way across the country, retrieve a computer and its temporary bearer and return it to the Capital. From boring train rides and under-qualified dorks to obnoxious bosses and crazy soldiers, it's meant to be a long mission.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. [Part 1]

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, look! What's this?  
> It's a plot I didn't draft!  
> Also, this is not going to be a long fic.

_Processing…_  
 _Data error..._  
 _Please wait…_  
 **Hello, boys.**  
 **Fancy finding you here.**  
 **Now, before we get into more serious businesses…**  
 **What the heck are you doing in a lingerie store?**

As Strider kicked an empty bottle with his feet, another one fell from a shelf and broke almost soundlessly thanks to the roaring jet planes above the building. Vantas paid neither of them any mind as he kept staring at the screen of his portable computer and typing insistently. They’d set their temporary camp in the suburbs of LOLAR after their latest fancy dinner party that may have or may have not starred a governor’s assassination and a dozen ministry-level casualties. People were crazy nowadays.

Then, suddenly, it was Strider’s computer’s turn to light up and beep smugly at them. This might not have been a problem if his owner had been less than a foot away from it, but Dave was in that moment at the door, counting hovercrafts. Karkat watched lines appear on the black screen out of the corner of his eyes before setting his own device down and walking over to it. 

“Are you doing this?” he called over his shoulder as he got closer to read whatever was there.

Strider walked over to him without a word and read the words on the screen too. “What the fuck?”

The writing grew still and they waited a few more moments. “Do you think it’s a bomb?”

At the silence that followed, Karkat raised his eyes and saw the other scanning the large, rundown room they have been cohabiting in for the last couple of days. “It should go kamikaze at the first sign of a virus, so I think not,” he referred at the machine. “Man, who the fuck cares?” he pushed Vantas out of the way to the keyboard and bent over it.

 

its not a lingerie store  
 **It so is. Look, it’s written right here. Daisy & Macduff’s, Sexy Nighties for Lacy Buttocks, founded September 2003.**  
thats ancient  
 **Well, maybe you like older women?**  
man im not denying that, but if by older you mean soot and dust 6 feet beneath the ground then no  
 **Undoubtedly reassuring.**

“What the fuck are you doing?” Vantas hissed at his side, watching the screen with a horrified expression.

“Turning the meat around the barbeque, what do you think? Can you track this?” But Karkat hadn’t even reached his computer when the screen chimed again.

**Oh, come on now.**  
 **I tracked you first, it’s not nice to plagiarize.**

Strider heard a hiss like someone poured water over hot coals and then Vantas swore loudly as his computer died. Alright. A shiver of uncalled-for dread ran down Dave’s spine and he turned back to the dialogue, jaw set and muscles even tenser than before, because this was not a GPS search anymore; this was them under Big Brother.

what do you want  
 **A mission done right; and I liked your CVs.**  
a mission  
 **Nothing too eccentric, I promise.**

Vantas was hovering over his shoulder now, deep in thought and frowns, his dead computer abandoned on the floor. “What do you say?” Dave asked in a low voice despite guessing it was probably futile by now.

It took Karkat a while to reply. “Is he paying?” Just the question he was waiting for.

how much  
 **Depends how much you’re asking.**  
quite a lot of zeros there im afraid  
 **I was thinking 9 or 10, depending on the costs for transport and other shit that might happen to you.**

Karkat choked, then shook his head. “We don’t have enough weapons to start another war or whatever this nutcase wants us to do for that money.” It was true that they didn’t, but they weren’t far from it. The fact that the screen didn’t reply to that, however, made Dave relax the slightest bit. No microphones. Maybe cameras, but not microphones. Nevertheless, who the fuck had this much money nowadays.

you serious  
 **Yep.**  
who the hell are you  
 **Oh!**  
 **Mea culpa, I guess this might have gone smoother if I did this first.**  
 **Typhon, you’ve heard of me.**

They did. No wonder they’ve been owned. Ever since the Big War broke out, this guy has been hacking into army databases like a fucking addict. Half of the armament was destroyed thanks to convenient malfunctions and small viruses. As he read the line, Dave let his eyebrows rise way up on his forehead. “Duuude,” he whistled, catching Karkat’s attention, who had just managed to open his computer again. 

“What?” the other snapped at him, but it only took one look for his jaw to slacken. “Thought he was dead,” he said after another moment.

True, the guy had gone silent even since the battle’s been put on hold by the number of deaths that had started to happen in cities instead of battlefields, done by yours truly or variations, but they should have know it was just a matter of time before he would strike back. Strider wondered if he actually had something to gain from overthrowing the Government or if he was just bored.

bonus points for the dramatic effect dude   
but what the fuck would you want us to do   
**Exactly what I can’t: move. Go to LOWAS, retrieve a computer and bring it to the Capital.**   
alright?   
cant find anything worth your money there so whats the catch   
**It’s kept a secret from the citizens, but LOWAS is under siege. I’ll help you get in, though. I’ll also give you the address at which you will find the computer. I left it with someone uninvolved, for safe keeping.**   
**The catch is, you have to bring the guy with you.**   
why   
**Because I say so?**   
fair enough   
what level of training are we talking about with this guy   
**He can’t even hold a gun.**   
splendid   
wouldnt it be easier to put a bullet through his head there no pain no witness no sorrow   
**I trust in your ability to keep him alive. Also, the computer stays with him the entire time. No touchy.**   
wow sheesh why wouldnt you trust a couple of spymaster assassins i am so offended right now   
**I’ll send you the maps as soon as you’re out of the city tomorrow morning. Tell your partner that I merely overwrote some of his folders and that his ancient movies suck.**

Then the screen turned mercifully black again and Dave was left to stare and raise eyebrows at it.

“Son of a bitch deleted half my hard disk drive. What did he want?” Karkat asked from on top of a wooden cupboard where he’d waited for the conversation to end.

There was less roaring above them now, since the sky was black with heavy rain to come. “Hired us as couriers,” he sniffed the smoke-filled air.

“Delivering what and where?” the other look up, greyish-red eyes glowing faintly in the darkness of the rundown building.

“Goods and fresh meat to the Capital. We’ll have to be out of the city by tomorrow morning.” He took the chance to stretch his back, groaning a little as his bones popped in annoyance. If they actually got that sum of money after this shit, the first thing he was going to do was buy a house full of mattresses.

A thunderstorm broke in the distance and Vantas scowled. “Fucking peachy.”


	2. [Part 2]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Long train rides are most damaging to one's intellect, while strong heat might induce unwanted thoughts and make-believing.

Getting out of LOLAR, although very uncomfortable, turns out to be a lot easier during the storm. The uncharted shortcuts are a lot livelier than during the day, outcasts and inexperienced thieves and gossip rats hanging around the narrow streets, happy that there would be no patrols hunting them down that night. Luckily, Dave and Karkat had been greedy enough with their public appearances that mostly nobody knew them by their looks.

They got outside the city just before sunrise and the roads didn’t look too pretty, dust and ash mingling together with the rain water and making mushy slopes all the way to the outer railroad system. Also, damn, the LOLAR station was a crumbling mess after years of transporting soldiers to and from conflicts.

“Do indulge my insidiously cloddish mind and tell me one more time what guarantee we have that we’ll get paid a disgusting amount of money,” Vantas rasped in the cold morning air, coughing as soon as enough smog got in his lungs. “Or any money at all,” he wheezed, the fit bringing reddish tears to his eyes.

Strider took to twirling a knife in his right hand as they waited for the train to come. “None, apart from the fact that we can kill the other guy and destroy the computer if we’re not paid in time.”

“What makes you think he’ll care? Maybe it’s just an elaborate prank made by an overpowered, brainscattered clodpole with nothing to do!” As legit-sounding as the rage was, Dave couldn’t tell if it was because of the deal or the fact that he’d lost his only source of entertainment last night at the same time with part of his hard drive.

The train, when it came, looked like a corpse bride abandoned at the altar by a homicidal werewolf, but it was probably 100 years old, so Dave let it pass and climbed into the last of its two wagons. They’ve been inside for less than an hour by the time a computer chimed. So much for punctuality. This time, it was Karkat’s device that beeped and he was none the happier about it.

To his relief and to Strider’s dismay, they only got the maps for the outer regions of LOWAS, the city itself and the neighbourhood in which lay their delivery. A lot of the safe zones, shortcuts, secret entrances and high-security points had been marked over it in blue, green, violet and red marker. In the lower left corner of the last scanned page was a black-scribbled “ **Good luck! ;)** ”. Dave smirked; he did love sociopaths.

Karkat was scowling big time at his screen and if he kept quiet any longer Dave was ready to think he was broken. “There’s no egress route.”

“Hm?”

“If we want to get from here to the Capital,” Karkat pointed from the blue dot that marked their destination to the upper right corner of the map. “We’ll have to go North-East. This thing only shows how we can get in, from the South.”

He had a point. “So we either pass the entrance gates after we get out from the South or we lose a couple of days circling the city clockwise,” Dave mused. If they had a street view of the eastern half, maybe they would plan a way out themselves, but those maps were ultra-classified information, hence the need to have them on paper.

He was still thinking about it when Karkat opened a text document with a few pissed-off pressings of buttons. 

 

HOW THE FUCK DO YOU EXPECT US TO GET OUT OF THERE, YOU SHIT. YOU JUST SAID YESTERDAY IT WAS GODDAMNED UNDER SIEGE.

 

Well, that was an idea. They waited a minute and nothing happened and Vantas was seeping wrath like the fucking fountains in the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Only quietly. For now. Then the screen reset itself in a blink.

 

**I left John the maps with the way out. It’s okay; he’s a most competent keeper.**  
 **Do excuse me for a couple of days now.**  
 **P.S. I added ¼ of your payment to your accounts already. No need to get your panties in a bunch over it, as you most certainly did until now.**  


YOU REALLY COULDN’T KEEP ALL THAT NAUSEATING SMUGNESS TO YOURSELF, COULDN’T YOU.

 

“I’m shooting him after we get paid,” Karkat clicked his computer shut and bit down on the inside of his cheek to get some anger relief, reminding Dave once again that squishy balls? He had to get hold of some and start a stress therapy with his work partner.

For now, however, he only took a bottle of juice he’d nicked earlier that night out of his safe-looking, ammo-filled backpack and got ready for another 9 hours of sitting around until they had to change the train. He vaguely remembered the time when he thought being a rebellious piece of shit was going to be exciting.

So they waited, and waited, and waited, and by the end Vantas was this close to shooting the walls of the vehicle just to get a little bit of a thrill. He didn’t. This was just as good, because Strider didn’t like people stealing his ideas. He, on the other hand, chose to throw knives at the seats in front of them. Then they got down and managed to find decent food not too far from the station, which did wonders for their moods.

“Only three today,” Dave swallowed his last mouthful and pointed at the clear sky. They were far from any big cities at the moment and this meant immediate Sun and he was sure the temperature washigher by at least 50 degrees here. He truly missed the pollution.

Karkat raised his eyes briefly, but there was only a line of grey smoke from a jet plane that stood out. He understood what the talk was about, however. “It takes time to build them, you know. Hovercrafts don’t grow on trees, like spaceships.” But the low number was reassuring, it meant war was not starting yet. Another day.

Snapping out of a small thought, Dave bent over the table and poked him with his fork, grinning widely. It made his face look strangely alive, especially since his goggles were still dangling from his neck, the heat being too much to put them on. “After this, we can buy one for ourselves.”

“And do what? Go to war?” Karkat looked unpleasantly at the fork and pushed it aside.

The other scoffed and leant back in his chair. “Go somewhere. You know the war is not all the way around us, don’t you? And if it is, then, hell, we can find a cave or a hobbit hole in which to live out our lives away from this shitty situation.”

It was quiet and Vantas stared for a while at his partner before shaking his head and getting up from the table. “You’ll hate yourself for saying this out loud tomorrow. I have no intention of committing to you, as I don’t doubt you don’t either,” he caught his eyes and waited for him to get up too. It was quiet outside too and way too bright for their walk back to the station. “And I think a small plane would satisfy that purpose better,” he called over his shoulder.

Strider was still silent as he walked along with him. Then finally, “I made a _book reference_ for you.”

Karkat caught himself snickering. “I’m aware.”

It got him a fairly painful punch in his arm. “Vantas, always playing so hard to get,” he mock-groaned before grinning again and going up on the platform. 

The second train ride was 14 hours long and by the time it was done, they had very nearly run a knife through each other’s head. One more like this one and they’d consider having sex to kill time. And what do you know? They had not one, but two more trains to take. Wasn’t life delicious.


End file.
